Queensland child safety failures: Faces of the innocents lost

THEY’RE the faces of innocents lost, the helpless children failed by Queensland’s child protection system, and whose deaths must not be in vain.

• At this price, why aren’t kids safe?
• Short life and death of Paul
• Minister’s admission on child safety
• Department ‘far better than it was’

BEATEN, tortured and abused, they are the lost children who died to expose the gaps in the child protection system.

Mason Lee’s death — after suffering broken bones, damaged organs and a ruptured small intestine, months after a hospital reported suspected abuse — sparked multiple inquiries that will soon determine what more should have been done.

But his is only one in a long line of tragedies and failures.

Brooke Brennan, 3

Her killer Troy Alan Self

In 1999, three-year-old Brooke Brennan was beaten to death by her mother’s boyfriend.

Troy Self, a violent, remorseless monster who is still in prison, beat the little girl so badly he ruptured internal organs and caused massive internal bleeding. He kicked her with the force of a car crash and ignored her when she vomited blood.

Two weeks earlier, Brooke had been admitted to hospital with a broken finger and bruising. A Suspected Child Abuse and Neglect (SCAN) team was called but Brooke’s mother had taken her daughter from the hospital.

When two case workers turned up at their unit soon after, she and Brooke hid in the laundry. They didn’t attempt to find the child again.

Then premier Peter Beattie called for a report into the failure and the Queensland Ombudsman wrote 150 pages in response.

The result: The department was ordered to improve its communication and record keeping processes.

An independent expert was to be brought in to assess whether the relevant child protection office had enough staff.

The death of Caboolture toddler Mason Lee sparked action on child safety.

The same Ombudsman compiled another report in 2004. This time it was a 200-page document relating to the death of a 10-week old girl named “baby Kate”.

Kate was on the department’s radar before she was born. Her mother, a woman with intellectual and physical impairments, had been seen by hospital staff shaking Kate and swearing at her.

The medical superintendent reported she had shown “minimal interest” in the child.

Despite this, within weeks Kate was in the sole care of her mother.

She died after her mother covered her with jumpers and a blanket to muffle the noise of her cries.

“Every year my office receives thousands of complaints,” Ombudsman David Bevan wrote.

“The most serious are the relatively few in which it is alleged that a public agency’s actions or failure to act have contributed directly or indirectly to a person’s death.”

The department’s own internal review found “no negligence had occurred” but Mr Bevan saw it differently.

Kate’s death led to a series of changes aimed at improved communication and record keeping as well as the establishment of the external Child Death Review Committee.

Faith Leaso, 8, was beaten to death by her mother with a vacuum cleaner pipe.

In November 2011, eight-year-old Faith Leaso was beaten to death with a vacuum cleaner pipe by her mother.

Child safety officers had twice been called to the little girl’s school in 2010 after she was found with an “enormous” bruise on her stomach, what appeared to be a cigarette burn and welts.

Little was done and Faith died with more than 50 separate areas of bruising and abrasions inflicted over days.

A pathologist found several of her fingers had been broken and pressure sores had begun to develop, indicated the child had been unable to move for days.

Again, multiple inquiries were held to determine what had gone wrong.

A team leader from the department told an investigator the same mistakes that led to Faith’s death “will be repeated … because nothing’s changed”.

“In fact,” the team leader said, “it has probably deteriorated in the fact that we have less staff and the incoming is high and I have a real genuine fear that this will happen again.”

Cindy McNulty with a picture of her daughter Felicia Goodson who suicided.

Zoe Gough, 16, also committed suicide.

Multiple inquiries were also held following the death of Felicia Goodson and Zoe Gough, both teenagers who committed suicide in 2009 following years of abuse and inaction.

Virginia Homer’s son was killed by his father in 1993.

Little Paul was 21 months old when he died two weeks after a SCAN team recommended the department investigate ongoing physical abuse.

Paul’s father, Victor Korin, had beaten the little boy while his mother was at work.

Neither the SCAN team recommendation, nor a report made by the child’s grandmother, were followed up by department staff.

But Ms Homer agreed overworked case workers did the best they could. She said she had never blamed anyone but Korin for Paul’s death – and herself for not knowing he was in danger.

Ms Homer asked doctors about her son’s bruises but was told they were typical of an active toddler.

Virginia Homer with pictures of son Paul, beaten to death by his father.

“Where do you start with this? How do you resolve the problem?” she said.

“It’s just such a huge problem. Mental health issues, the ongoing cycle of abuse.

“The UN Convention on the Rights of the Child says children have the right to live. And that governments should ensure that children survive and develop healthily, that children are cared for and protected from violence.”

Child Safety Minister Shannon Fentiman said it was important to find out exactly what had happened in the case of Mason Lee.

“I think people should have confidence in the fact that we have an incredibly robust system of review when any child known to the department … in the 12 months before their death … (dies).

“We review it and it is thorough and starts with an internal review, then goes to an independent expert panel who really looks at every aspect of the case and makes recommendations back to me.

“There is an incredibly thorough process in place for when these tragic incidents happen.

“We need to find out what happened and if there are system changes that need to be overhauled or new processes put in place, I’ll absolutely do that.”